Family still yearns for answers in case of missing woman

Published: Monday, May 6, 2013 at 06:25 PM.

Garvey said she talks regularly with the detective overseeing Rivkin’s case, and the occasional tip comes in.

“But it usually turns out to be nothing,” she said. “Even if they feel they’re getting somewhere, it ends up being a dead end.”

The realization that five years have passed was sobering for Rivkin’s family members. Her history of drug use and the fact that her belongings were found in the BMW are ominous signs that she likely didn’t simply leave the area and start a new life somewhere else, Garvey said.

Still close with family

Rivkin was careful not to bring her demons around the people who truly cared about her, Garvey said. She maintained a relationship with her family in Bessemer City, and was even visiting her mother a day or two before she disappeared.

“She kept us separate from that life and really wanted us to have no part of it,” said Garvey. “She was still very close to her family, despite what she was going through, and we know she loved us very much.”

Five years after 42-year-old Jennifer Ramsey Rivkin went missing, life has gone on for the people who loved and cared about her.

Hilda Ramsey was diagnosed with breast cancer six months after her daughter vanished, but has survived.

Rivkin’s son, 26-year-old Markus Mobley, now has a 3-year-old daughter of his own.

Janet Garvey goes to work every morning and tries to find happiness day to day.

But the void left by her big sister’s disappearance often weighs her down, as it does for others in her family.

“When you have a loved one who just disappears off the face of the earth, and five years go by and there’s still nothing, it’s just that ‘not knowing,’” said Garvey. “I don’t have a place to go visit her. No place to put flowers. There’s no way you can ever begin to heal.

“That makes it so much more difficult.”

No trace

Rivkin was last heard from May 4, 2008, when she left a cellphone message for a friend. Two days later, the borrowed silver BMW she had been driving was found in the Dixie Village parking lot in west Gastonia, near the Winner’s Circle Bar & Grill at 2533 W. Franklin Blvd.

She was described as 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 130 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes. She was living in Kings Mountain at the time.

She had cut and styled hair in Bessemer City for years prior, but was not working at the time she went missing.

Rivkin had endured repeated battles with substance abuse for years. Several of her belongings — including her purse and driver’s license — were inside the BMW.

Gastonia police say the missing person case is still open, but few leads have panned out or provided much useful information since 2008.

Garvey said she talks regularly with the detective overseeing Rivkin’s case, and the occasional tip comes in.

“But it usually turns out to be nothing,” she said. “Even if they feel they’re getting somewhere, it ends up being a dead end.”

The realization that five years have passed was sobering for Rivkin’s family members. Her history of drug use and the fact that her belongings were found in the BMW are ominous signs that she likely didn’t simply leave the area and start a new life somewhere else, Garvey said.

Still close with family

Rivkin was careful not to bring her demons around the people who truly cared about her, Garvey said. She maintained a relationship with her family in Bessemer City, and was even visiting her mother a day or two before she disappeared.

“She kept us separate from that life and really wanted us to have no part of it,” said Garvey. “She was still very close to her family, despite what she was going through, and we know she loved us very much.”

Mobley said he was close to his mother, even as he watched her substance abuse problems pull her away. He looks at his 3-year-old daughter, Lila, and dreams of her being able to meet her grandmother, though he said he’s a realist about that being unlikely.

“In my heart, I believe it was foul play,” he said. “I think she got involved with the wrong people.”

But Mobley still tries to keep word circulating about the unsolved disappearance on social media. If there is someone out there who knows what happened to his mother, or who was responsible for her disappearance, he wants it to come to light.

“Somebody knows something,” he said.

Mobley said he wants nothing more than to see his mother’s face again. But if that can’t happen, he yearns for closure.

“It’s the hardest thing when you don’t know,” he said. “It eats people alive.”

You can reach Michael Barrett at 704-869-1826 or twitter.com/GazetteMike.

How you can help

Anyone with information about the disappearance of Jennifer Ramsey Rivkin should contact the Gastonia Police Department at 704-866-6976, or Gaston County Crime Stoppers at 704-861-8000.